The
chaos in Iraq must surely give many Saudis pause for thought. Unlike
Iraq, there are not ethnic tensions in the country. Among advocates of
reform, it is doubtful that even among the most modernised,
Western-educated technocrats, that there is strong support for a radical
move away from Islamic political theory as the basis of the Saudi
constitutional system.

August
09,
2004--On
Saturday August 4, 1990, CNN reported that 170,000 Iraqi troops were
massed on the Kuwaiti border with Saudi Arabia as President George Bush
Snr. was in discussions with Saudi King Fahd on American military
intervention in response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. The oil fields
which had fuelled the dramatictransformation
of the Desert Kingdom since the development of the oil industry began in
1938, lay south of the border. The Strategic Oil Storage Project which
provided for the building of massive underground caverns at 5 sites
throughout Saudi Arabia was still a work in progress. The aim of the
project was to provide strategic supplies of oil in the event of catastrophic
events at the oil fields. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein
had an opportunity to seriously undermine the Saudi Monarchy by
capturing the oil fields and creating havoc in the Saudi economy and
society by destroying a major desalination plant. It was high summer and
most of the 19 million residents depended on the desalination plants for
drinking water. Saddam Hussein didn't order his troops to cross the
border and American Army units began arriving in Saudi Arabia in the
following week.

President George H. Bush and King Fahd in Saudi
Arabia Nov 1990 Photo Credit:
George Bush Presidential Library

There
is little doubt that the supreme prize today for
al-Qaeda
would be the double whammy of a
serious attack on Saudi Arabian oil facilities that would both undermine
the Saudi Government and inflict serious damage on Western economies
through a big surge in the price of oil. Saudi Arabian crude
supply is estimated to have reached over 9 million barrels per day
which is over 11% of world supply. The loss of this supply for even a
relatively short period would likely induce a worldwide economic
recession. However, instability within the country over a long
period would likely have greater consequences. (See-Oil
Market Statistics below)

Balancing
a rapid economic modernisation programme while maintaining a very
conservative religious based society is bound to have resulted in
pressure points at some stage. The seeds of the current armed dissent were sown
a quarter century ago.

In
the year that hundreds of Saudi religious extremists took over the Grand
Mosque in
Makkah by armed force, US President Jimmy Carter signed a finding
authorising a covert programme of assistance for groups opposing the
Soviet backed communist Afghan government. In his 1996 memoir From
the Shadows, former Director of Central Intelligence Robert Gates
revealed the $500 million in non-lethal aid which was designed to
counter the billions the Soviets were providing their puppet regime.
Some American policymakers were eager to lure the Soviets into a
Vietnam-like entanglement. Gates recounts that at a key meeting on March
30, 1979, Under Secretary of Defense Walter Slocumbe wondered aloud
whether 'there was value in keeping the Afghan insurgency going,
"sucking the Soviets into a Vietnamese quagmire."' Former US
National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski said in a 1998 interview
with the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur,: 'We didn't push
the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability
that they would.'

1979
was the year of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the seizure of the
Grand Mosque was a serious jolt for the House of Saud. In December 1979,
the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and soon became the target of a Jihad
holy war funded by Saudi Arabia and the US. Thousands of Saudis
including Osama bin Laden headed for Afghanistan and their return home
coincided with the arrival of more than a half million American
servicemen in the Kingdom. It is not surprising that many of the
returnees had been further radicalised by their experience in
Afghanistan. U.S. intelligence estimates that 10,000 to
20,000 men passed through the Afghan training camps. It is ironic that Jimmy Carter, a later winner
of the Nobel Peace Prize, paved the way for the rise of Osama bin
Laden. On the credit side, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was
the beginning of the end of communism.

President George W. Bush meeting Crown Prince
Abdullah in April2002
White House Photo: David Bohren

Today,
as the murder of an Irish expatriate engineer in Riyadh last week
confirms, al-Qaeda
is focusing on soft targets by in seeking to undermine the Saudi economy
through driving Western expatriates
from the Kingdom. However, The Los Angeles Times has reported
that al-Qaeda may be seeking to stage a spectacular assassination by
killing a senior member of the Royal Family. It quotes a Saudi dissident
in London Saad Fagih as saying: 'Many people are saying the jihadis
are doing a big mistake by targeting foreigners..They should have
targeted the royal family long ago. We would admire jihadis if
they would attack the royal family rather than these compounds.' Last
July, the Times reports that a group posted on a website affiliated with
Al Qaeda detailed plans for killing Prince Nayif ibn Abdulaziz, the
powerful Saudi interior minister. The plans described Nayif's daily
routine and identified his residences and the way his car is concealed
among other cars in his motorcade. 'If the jihadis succeed in
getting one of the royals, people will join them in the thousands,'
Fagih predicted. Intelligence officials and outside analysts estimate
that Al Qaeda has 500 to 1,500 hard-core activists, a small number in a
country with a population of about 19 million.

Saudi Arabia is in a quandary in responding to the
need for political and social reform. The Government fears that a fast
track approach would precipitate revolution while too slow a
process would provide support for extremists.

The Saudi
Press Agency announced last week that municipal elections across Saudi Arabia, the first
such voting in decades, will begin in November. Last October, Crown Prince Abdullah, the
de facto leader, requested the authorities to prepare for municipal elections within a
year. Plans for the elections, the first in four decades, fin Lollowed
pressure from the United States and domestic advocates to grant some
political participation and freedom of expression. Last March, advocates
of reform had received a setback when about
a dozen reform advocates were arrested. Half of the number were released within
days
after pledging they would no longer lobby publicly for change. Three remain in
detention, and they are to go on trial this week.
Many of the detained activists had signed a petition suggesting that
Saudi Arabia be turned into a constitutional monarchy. Government
officials have
accused the campaigners of engaging in "incitement," sowing
dissent, threatening national unity and having "some contacts with
foreign sides."
The first stage of the planned elections will be held in the region of Riyadh, the capital, and
will begin in November. The second stage will cover the Eastern Province and
southern regions. The third stage would be held in the western regions
of Jeddah, Makkah and Medina and the northern regions after the annual pilgrimage
to those places in January. It is thought that women will not have the
right to vote.

The chaos in Iraq must surely give many Saudis
pause for thought. Unlike Iraq, there are not ethnic tensions in the
country. Among advocates of reform, it is doubtful that even among the
most modernised, Western-educated technocrats, that there is strong
support for a radical move away from Islamic political theory as the
basis of the Saudi constitutional system. However, there must be a
realignment of the pact between the House of Saud and the conservative
religious establishment. The link with the Wahhabi doctrine of Islam
dates back to the mid-18th century and supporters of al-Qaeda can
justifiably claim that they are the true believers. In the schools, the
teaching of the Holy Quoran (Koran), accounts for about 40% of the
curriculum and the emphasis is often on an extreme interpretation, in
particular in fostering a negative attitude to what are termed
non-believers. The Government no longer has full control of the
media with the rise of media services like Al Jazeera TV. Saudi
society has undergone a rapid modernisation in the space of a few
decades. There is still time for gradual change from the system of
absolute monarchy but the clock is ticking.

Terror in the Kingdom

The following is a compilation from The Los Angeles Times that
has been updated by Finfacts:

Islamic extremists have killed scores of Westerners and Muslims in
Saudi Arabia in a little more than a year, but they might switch tactics
and target a member of the Saudi royal family.